Strange days is right, most of those people had a job when Obama took office.

Terrye on April 2, 2010 at 7:35 PM

Come on, while it’s fair to argue if the recovery would have been faster or slower you have to acknowledge that it takes a new president some time to recover from the kind of economic conditions inherited. I mean even the great Ronald Reagan struggled..

When Reagan took office it took some time:

1980- 7.1% (Carter’s last year)
1981- 7.6 Reagan’s First Year
1982- 9.7 Reagan’s Second Year
1983- 9.6 Reagan’s Third Year

It wasn’t until Reagan’s 4th year in office the unemployment rate started to come down, 1984 it came down to 7.5%, yet I don’t remember people cheer-leading for the United States to fail like I see here.

]]>By: platypushttp://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/02/breaking-unemployment-stays-at-9-7/comment-page-2/#comment-3435962
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:59:08 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=86855#comment-3435962Does anybody think the middle class is going to go quietly into the abyss? We’ve seen that movie and we know how it ends.

To be elected in any national race requires only three things to say:

1. I will vote to repeal HCR and I will vote against any bill that helps implement HCR.
2. I will vote to cut taxes and I will vote against any tax increase regardless of purpose.
3. I will vote against any bill that increases government and for any bill that decreases government.

If this was the three prong campaign pitch of all challengers, at least 90% of them would win. Any questions beyond those three should be referred back to those three.

162k jobs is 162k real people working who were not. I doubt they will see this as bad news.

NextGen on April 2, 2010 at 6:57 PM

Strange days is right, most of those people had a job when Obama took office. The thing is I can remember people comparing Bush to Hoover when the unemployment rate ws 5%. The truth is millions of people are not even being counted anymore on those rolls. It has been down for so long now, that we are expected to celebrate a 9.7% unemployment rate.

162k jobs is 162k real people working who were not. I doubt they will see this as bad news.

]]>By: Lewhttp://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/02/breaking-unemployment-stays-at-9-7/comment-page-2/#comment-3435470
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:16:19 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=86855#comment-3435470Dittos Chaz706! I couldn’t agree more!
]]>By: Lewhttp://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/02/breaking-unemployment-stays-at-9-7/comment-page-2/#comment-3435462
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:14:00 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=86855#comment-3435462Blink, I’d like to jump in here and amplify on your basic notion. I’d expand your point to suggest that as long as we limit our arguments to economics, we’re allowing the left to define the battle space and we might as well just give up now.
Remember, one of the primary underpinnings of Marxist theory is that economics drives human destiny and shapes all of human existence. In their world none of the other parameters of human culture, like religion and philosophy and politics mean anything in the face of the distribution of wealth and the ownership of productive capital. The earth, according to the left, is inhabited by a creature called “homo economus” instead of homo sapiens.
I think we need to base our response to the Obama takeover on the issues of freedom and federalism, and why those values are the foundations of any meaningful prosperity that we may recover for ourselves down the road. After all, if we all end up being taken care of as inmates in the velveteen gulag that these folks envisage for us, what good will all of our “prosperity” do us?
Arguing economics and costs, except in so far as they affect freedom and federalism, is preparing our own ambush.
]]>By: Chaz706http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/02/breaking-unemployment-stays-at-9-7/comment-page-2/#comment-3435452
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:09:45 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=86855#comment-3435452

The democrats would like you to believe this is the first Recession we have ever recovered from, when, in fact, it should have never been this bad, or this long, if it hadn’t been for Obama’s attack on the private sector.

Recovery should have begun about a year ago.

cntrlfrk on April 2, 2010 at 11:20 AM

It wouldn’t have happened at all were it not for the blokes in Washington pumping up a housing bubble well beyond safe levels.

As for those wondering what the economy will do between now and November… it’s best not to try to predict.

We have something else to worry about right now… we need to constantly remind the people of the liberties we just lost with the health care law. No amount of economic recovery matters if we sold our freedoms for it.

I think your going to see the health care legislation start a new round of off shoring for production, and where possible services.

DFCtomm on April 2, 2010 at 4:11 PM

You are 100% right about that.

But not this year. Business aren’t smart enough to react that quickly. It will take awhile before the pain is actually felt.

In the meantime, conservatives need to understand this and position themselves correctly. They can’t do that if they don’t understand economics. They can’t do that if they’re predicting immediate doom and gloom.

While I think there are certainly some dominoes which could cause a huge problem, I don’t think it will occur this cycle.

I think we’re going to get a free pass despite the housing debt problem (BIG problems at Fannie, Feddie, etc.).

I think we’re going to get a free pass on financing for state and federal budgets, too.

This is what’s unfortunate. These free passes this time will reinforce the stupid policies that these big-government idiots have put into place.

The only hope we have is to avoid disaster now and then implement fiscally conservative policies. But if we don’t win back Congress then that’s never going to happen. And if we don’t acknowledge that some sort of recovery will occur this year, then we’re going to risk losing our opportunity.

I disagree. I think the growth will start to be felt by most Americans by November.

blink on April 2, 2010 at 3:53 PM

You might have been able to say that before passage of health care, but how can you say that now. I don’t see any growth worth mentioning anytime soon. The only hope is to grow another bubble, but we have reached a negative impact of borrowed money on GDP. I think fears that the Democrats are going to ride a recovery in November are unfounded.

Funny, but joking aside. I think the use of a costume was fine under those circumstances. If a drive doesn’t notice and yield to a guy in a bunny suit at a crosswalk, then they aren’t going to yield to a normal pedestrian.

bkink, every couple of months lately the BLS changes the way they compute the U6 number. They are simply not counting more and more groups. I’ve made many posts about my research into this and Ed has mentioned it several times as well.

The GDP are easily manipulated as we have seen in the last three reports. If you examine the details closely and drop out all federal spending (which should never be in there since the government produces nothing) the net effect is:

Very close to zero growth. Some economists have gone so far as to claim its actually still negative. Hunt around the web for “actual GDP” and see for yourself. Also check out shadowstats.com.

BTW readers, in terms of actual raw percentages we have way surpassed the unemployment of the depression and have nearly double the raw count of unemployed. That number is increasing every week.

Companies are laying off.
More people are coming into the workforce.
Government is laying off as the porkulus money runs out.
Producers report there is next to no demand for their products.

The argument is that the growth won’t be anemic compared to what it could be if the govenment were instituting fiscally conservative policies.

blink on April 2, 2010 at 1:56 PM

Spot on again.

This recession would truly be ‘Historic’ if we never recovered from it. We have recovered from each one prior, haven’t we?

In addition, with the ‘administration’ playing with numbers, and the media vowing undying love for anything Obama says, as numbers change because people cannot claim unemployment any longer, or because ‘initial unemployment’ claims drop because we may have hit bottom and companies have trimmed their staff to a bare minimum, do we want to position ourselves as anti-recovery????

No. Nobody is against recovery. We are only against the oppression we are walking into.

So, if the economy improves throughout the rest of 2010, then it will help Democrats in the Nov election – even if it turns south in 2011.

But frankly, I don’t see that happening. the momentum from an improved economy will continue to drive new economic growth for some time.

The argument is that the growth won’t be anemic compared to what it could be if the govenment were instituting fiscally conservative policies.

blink on April 2, 2010 at 1:56 PM

The growth won’t translate to anything tangle for the average American. The Democrats will beat the drum that things are improving, but it will ring hollow, so the anemic fake growth won’t help them much during the election. Things will turn south late this year, then we’ll see what happens. Will the government interfere as they did in 2008, or will things be allowed to take their course this time.